Karanja Cake Meal vs Neem Cake Meal; Ammendments that Integrate Pest Management

[big ballin 88]

I've been in a constant battle with fungus gnats and have pretty much tried everything. As a recommendation from Capt. Cheeze, I am going to start utilizing Neem cake meal. I have already starting utilizing Crab Meal and feel its a great amendment for the arsenal, due to its many benefits and nutrional profile.

When searching for a vendor for this meal, i found a pretty inexpensive place(my mindset), which offers many Neem goods and others, such as Sesame oil, Karanja Cake Meal and Neem or Karanja oil by the 55 gal drum.

I decided that I will utilize both and got 5lbs of each. I am going to mix them together and treat lightly, since it may have an alleopathic effect.

I know you guys out West utilize Karanja, but how does it compare to Neem? If these work out well I will be buying like 20 pounds of each.

Are there any other ammendments you guys utilize which fight/repel/balance the insect population? I am considering making my own essential oils for rosemary and I can use the waste to incorporate into my soil, maybe in the same way the cake meals mentioned here work.

 

[heady blunts]

i have been adding neem seed meal to my mix per coot's suggestion for maybe 6 months now and my gnat problem seems to have disappeared. worms and other soil biology seem unaffected as far as i can tell from my eyes and the health of my plants.

it also has a nice nutrient profile:

Content of GreeNeem cake.

Azadirachtin 800-900ppm
Nitrogen 4.0% minimum
Phosphorus 3.0%
Potassium 1.67%
Carbon 1.2%
Sulphur 1.2%
Calcium 0.77%
Magnessium 0.75%

crab meal is next on my list but i haven't found it anywhere locally yet.

i also think switching to blumats helped -- no more overwatering.

and mulch is a good idea too. good leaf/weed mulch is full of predators. good luck to the pregnant gnat trying to get thru that to lay some eggs.

you might want to try FPE before you go the essential oil route. i don't have experience with rosemary, but i've found lavender FPE to be very effective in controlling pest populations above the soil.

 

[Scrappy4]

BB 88 I've been using the neem karanja meals mixed equally for a few cycles now, along with maintenance sprays of both oils mixed. In flower i hit them with a few dried lavender FPE. And like Heady says so far no problems. I don't know if one is better than the other though.

I did somehow let my neem karanja meal mix to get wet in a bucket. Woowee does it ever stink. I scraped off the top layer and put it in my worm bin. One day later and it's full of fungus in the worm bin. I'm not sure if i want to make a FPE out of the rest or try to dry it up.

Back to your post, I got mine from neem resource in MN on the net. And IMHO your homemade essential oil leftovers would make for a great top dress, again in my opinion.

My last grow had a leaf explosion, green everywhere, so 3 weeks in flower i trimmed the bottom below the scrog screen, then later trimmed fan leaves from the top to open up light for bud sites. Anyway all those leaves went as mulch. I then sprayed the mulch leaves with a weak em1 solution. To my amazement, by harvest, the original leaves were soil by then, not only that but there was a nice bug (friendly) population under those leaves not yet composted. So now i'm big on top dresses and mulching, lol. hope this helps.......scrappy

 

[big ballin 88]

I've always utilized the leaves and males as mulch, and then when I recycle the soil, i make sure to break up the leaf real fine. It kinda works like a makeshift compost pile, that continuously gets recycled. Once I get rid of these fungus gnats I'd like to try the no-till idea, and maybe move up to a huge smartpot bed. So far I have tons of centipedes that do work and my earthworm castings hold predatory mites by the thousands.

I've utilized FPE's but nothing that discouraged the gnats and I think there also may be winged aphids. Unfortunately lavender does not take kindly down here, which is why I want to utilize rosemary and probably thyme. I'm making some lacto cultures to try switch my FPE's up some. I'm tired of my plants yellowing prematurely and getting undersized yields.

 

[mad librettist]

have yet to see gnats infest a living mulch.

 

[CT Guy]

www.neemresource.com

Recommended by Clack, it's what I use. The neem is supposed to be 100X or so higher in the beneficial active ingredients than the Dynagrow version.

From Coot:
Fungus Gnats
What I do (and recommend) is to take about 1 cup of either meal (neem/karanja) and add that to 4 or 5 gallons of water. Aerate it like an AACT and not to create a 'microbial tea' but rather to get the meal particles bouncing around in the water. Let it run for about 36 hours. Adding 1//2 cup of kelp meal is also beneficial as a couple of compounds found in kelp meal (not in seaweed extract) are effective in limiting the ability of the larva to hatch from the eggs.



Foliar Spray for Powdery Mildew (2-3x week in veg) per quart

1 t. Neem Oil

½ t. ProTekt

1 T. Aloe

Pre-mix the neem and ProTekt in shot glass before adding to water/aloe mix in sprayer. Shake well. Use warm water.

 

[schwagg]

predatory nematodes?

 

[big ballin 88]

I tried the nematodes with little success. If things get bad enough i'll try a different brand. It seems we are all utilizing neemresource.com. Thats where I ordered from....

 

[guest2012y]

Karanja has like one more component than neem..but they both have all the 200 or so compounds. Coot's the man with the know on this.
The Karanja is wild harvested in India...

Anyone heard of using Actinovate on Gnats and aphids?....I heard of one guy claiming success locally.

 

[big ballin 88]

In my mind, organics is about the diversity, so I figured I would prefer to have karanja/neem instead of just one or the other. I did notice karanja and neem differ on some chemicals, but its not that big of a deal.

I'm hoping that with these amendments and FPE's, that I will have a good outdoor harvest for the first time in 3 years. Doing a couple of 45gal trees for winter since thats out best time of year for growing.

Hoping between the Smart Pots, Coco Coir and neem/karanja cake/crab meal, lost harvests will be a thing of the past.

 

[guest2012y]

I still use neem seed meal for the soil...but the Karanja oil is way better for sprays and such.

 

[big ballin 88]

What about making some fermented extracts utilizing these cake meals? The recipe CT presented from Coot seems like it has potential as an FPE. However, I believe Neem has alleopathic effects on seeds in larger doses(could be problematic or beneficial i guess).

Am I just better off sticking to oil? For oils I'm thinking about using karanja, sesame and neem.

As of recently however, it seems the crab meal has brought out the centipede population(or they have finally become stronger) and has begun controlling fungus gnats. I see about 1 centipedes per every 4 fungus gnats now, with the addition of predatory mites from my EWC.

Gotta love the diversity of biology....

 

[Scrappy4]

I'm interested in making FPE from meals as well. I have a bucket of karanja and neem cake that got wet. It smells like manure, it's dense like cement, and I'm thinking of either adding more water or drying it out.....scrappy

 

[Krshna]

can somebody tell me how much they are using these meals in their soil mix? i see on the website it says 1% for each, so would you have to do .5% of each if you use both? i had a problem with fungus gnats in my last grow and would like to use these, i just dont want to overdo it. thanks!

 

[Scrappy4]

can somebody tell me how much they are using these meals in their soil mix? i see on the website it says 1% for each, so would you have to do .5% of each if you use both? i had a problem with fungus gnats in my last grow and would like to use these, i just dont want to overdo it. thanks!

According to my notes I used 1/2 cup of a mix of the two meals in each 7 gallon smart pot of already amended soil. I have no idea where I got that amount from, but that's my current amount in a new soil too...."scrappy

 

[big ballin 88]

I received my package today and this stuff is pretty amazing. Both of them smell great and contain a fair bit of oil. I feel there may not be a need to make FPE out of these ingredients, but I am trying so anyways in a tiny batch. It was easy to just put this stuff in a jug, shake it up and finish with some nicely mixed neem/karanja dilute.

I am considering buying more, but at this moment it seems a little goes a long way. I've added it to all my mixes and left half of it at my outdoor spot. I have a good feeling about this stuff in the soil.